Many vehicles are designed for carrying passengers and cargo. Removable seats have been used to maximize the cargo carrying capacity of a vehicle that can also carry passengers. However, the removable seats tend to be relatively heavy and difficult to store. Folding seats have also been used to increase the cargo volume of a vehicle, or to allow larger cargo to be carried within the vehicle. The folding seat systems where the seatback is rotated forward and down to form a cargo floor may be relatively easy to use, but since the seat cushion remains in the passenger configuration, and the seat back lays substantially on top of the seat cushion, the cargo floor remains relatively high relative to the vehicle floor, thereby reducing the volume of the cargo that may be carried, and, in some instances, rendering the cargo floor relatively inconvenient to access. Other designs have been proposed to lower that cargo floor, but these invariably are relatively complex, require more operational steps to configure, and/or require the use of automation.
As such, it would be desirable to provide an occupant seat system that is configurable for carrying passengers or for carrying cargo, and that provides a relatively low cargo floor relative to the vehicle floor. It would further be desirable to provide such a system that may be configured with a relatively small number of simple operational steps.